My first real introduction to Warren Zevon didn’t
come through his eponymous 1978 mega-hit, “Werewolves of London,”
even though I heard that song endlessly growing up. It remained a go-to staple
of the rock radio station I cut my teeth listening to in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
WSKZ-106 FM. The notion that a real person named Warren Zevon sang it was
almost an afterthought to its crazy, catchy novelty.

No, my real connection to the man named Zevon
came in January of 2000 when Jeff Fisher, the mustachioed, sunglasses sporting,
California-bred coach of my one and only Tennessee Titans NFL football team
gave a press conference just prior to flying down to Florida for a playoff
showdown with the Jacksonville Jaguars for the AFC Conference Championship.
“We’re going down there,” he said, “And we’re
bringing lawyers, guns and money.” The Titans backed it up, kicking
the living shit out of the Jags at home and advancing to their first and only
(sigh) Super Bowl appearance. After that I knew that Fisher was one of the
coolest customers on earth. And so, it seemed, was Warren Zevon.

Even though it’s self-titled, 1976’s
Warren Zevon was hardly a debut. By that time he’d been a top
L.A. session piano player and songwriter for nearly a decade (playing with
the Everly Brothers before their breakup and for Phil after he went solo),
had crashed and burned as a New York folk singer, and was seven years removed
from a first album, 1969’s Wanted Dead or Alive, no one seems
to think was any good. The man was certainly tested, at one point leaving
Los Angeles altogether to spend a year in Spain. But like a bottle of good
drink, that decade of struggles only served to refine, concentrate, and deepen
his potential as songwriter, arranger and iconic tone-setter.

The first thing that strikes you about Warren
Zevon, is how many friends Zevon had accrued during his session years
in L.A. The record was produced by Jackson Browne, who also sings and plays
slide guitar and piano on a handful of tracks. Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsay
Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (credited as Stephanie Nicks) make significant
contributions, as do the Eagles’ Glenn Frey and Don Henley. Bonnie Raitt
sings background on “Join Me in L.A.” (one of the album’s
standouts) and Phil Everly harmonizes on the leadoff “Frank and Jesse
James.” Even jazz organist and keyboardist Jai Winding shows up unexpectedly
a couple of times. But undoubtedly the greatest guest contribution is by guitartist
Waddy Wachtel, who plays lead on every track, anchoring the enterprise in
a solid, understated rock groove with the supplest of light touches, much
as he would on Stevie Nick’s
solo effort, Bella
Donna, four years later.

Warren Zevon is an album impossible
not to like, if encountered in the right circumstances. For instance, don’t
listen to it in the daylight hours, with afternoon sunshine streaming in your
windows. Don’t listen to it in the background, on hold with the DMV
or cable company. It’s not that kind of record. It’s an organic
thing, elegant and dissolute, raw and refined, that’s made for the nighttime
hours. It should be listened to loud, its volume not assaulting you, but mellowing
out through the speakers, highlighting all the musicians’ contributions,
filling the languid contours of your evening. It isn’t full of itself
and it isn’t sorry. It just tells stories, mythic and real, about sad
sacks, bad dudes, and worse women. It’s full of references to actual
L.A. locales—Echo Park, Pioneer Chicken, the Rainbow (Room) Bar, the
Tropicana, the (Sunset) Hyatt, Topanga, Gower Avenue, etc—that give
it an honest, lived-in feel. It’s all about the anti-image of Los Angeles,
the stuff of noir novels, B-movies, and tabloid confessions--the
dark places we’ve haunted in that wrong kind of Hollywood romance. But
romance it is, nonetheless. And how we burn for the killing kiss.

Warren Zevon died of cancer in 2003. I recall
hearing an interview with him on NPR at the time, and he remarked that he
was just hoping he’d live long enough ‘til the next James Bond
movie came out. I didn’t know him or his music well enough while he
lived. My bad. I guess I’ll never be as cool as Jeff Fisher.

Thankfully, however, the creators of the series
Californication have been keeping his flame alive, featuring a couple
of memorable late-Zevon songs in several key episodes last season. David Duchovny’s
Hank Moody even namechecked the man, stating his routine post-writing ritual
was to pour a hefty Scotch, light a joint and listen to a Warren Zevon record.

Substitute the Scotch for a fine Reposado tequila
or Mezcal and that’s a ritual I’d recommend to anyone. Though
it may require lawyers, guns and money to extricate you from the results.